I CBA to read all 10 pages of this thread - apologies - so just going to stick my rant below - and if I cover topics that have already been covered then so be it.
Diablo 4..... is the perfect combination of unfun.
I liked the story line - I honestly think it was the best part of the game. Its the rest of the game that just feels like a AAA game company money grab. Half baked, under developed, and artificially long winded for the sake of it. I have gone back to Diablo 3 to be honest, and playing Diablo 3 for a little bit and then jumping into Diablo 4 - you pick up on a number of things that are infinitely better in D3. I found a reddit post that listed them quite nicely:
Kanais Cube:
I seriously want this back. To have to grind for legendaries and extract their aspects to only be able to apply that aspect once and if you need to upgrade the item you applied that aspect to, and you don't have another legendary with the aspect you need again to extract then you are screwed. I know we have something LIKE it ... but it's far worse.
Legendary Aspects:
I really want legendary aspects to match items, and not just have random aspects on random bits of legendary equipment... it makes it so hard to then get another aspect you need if every legendary despite being the same, can have completely different aspects.
Gems Feel Powerful in D3:
I started a brand new character on D3 today. Collected all the gem pieces I needed, and slotted a gem into my weapon, and albeit I was low level, I got a decent damage boost. D4 just doesn't have that. I skip over gems all the time... they aren't even a good way to farm gold. D3 they sold for at least for a couple thousand gold each. You can spend 300k building a decent gem in D4... and it can only sell for 50 gold. Before you smash your keyboard in rage... yes ... I know gems aren't meant to be sold... but hear me out... when I am spending literal millions (sometimes) of gold on re-rolling a stat, when I do a gold run to afford to do it again, why can't I sell gems and the crud I pick up to sell?
Shields / Barriers on Wizards / Sorcerers:
Man.... being able to activate a storm shield / ice shield and it be around for like 4 minutes is amazing... vs d4 where I am fiercely smashing my keyboard and risking rsi because the flame shield only lasts 2 seconds.
Shrines & Pylons:
Good grief... I honestly feel like shrines in D4 are useless... the much bigger map (which I like) is even more of a reason for them to last a good amount of time... but they don't.. you activate a shrine, and it's often cursed so you don't get thr blessing you need to fight off the 4 or 5 waves of enemies, and only then you get the blessing.... why not give me the blessing and then send the waves? So I actually have something to fight. As it is, I end up traveling on my horse to thr next mob and lost 35% of my shrine to traveling time.
Pylons... man oh man do I miss Pylons. Speed pylon. Protection Pylons. Speed Pylons. Conduit Pylons. (They were much better in D3) Man I miss them. They felt good, they felt useful, they felt like they made a difference.
Goblin variety:
Gelatinous goblins. Loot goblins. Blood shard goblins. Material goblins.
I miss them. D4... when you find a goblin... you just prepare yourself for the inevitable disappointment. At best you get a few items to sell for gold.
Item Comparrison:
I complained about D3's item comparison. I take it all back. To be able to look at an item, and have 3 things to worry about: Damage % Vitality % Toughness %
If you saw all green. You good to go.
D4 ... my word. Let me alt tab quickly and plug all the stats into some excel spreadsheet only to find its no good and move on. I don't understand why people defend it. "Oh you lazy" "oh learn the game" "there is nothing wrong with it"
I'm sorry but there is. It's a nightmare. While I appreciate the build variety having all these new modifiers brings... if you going to introduce that level of complexity... it needs to be balanced with a way to interpret it without the need of rules of thumb, 30 min YouTube videos and a complex excel document. Blizzard can do better.
Pets:
In D4 I am permanently gold poor. Rerolling costs a lot.... and I find myself leaving no gold behind. 230 gold... I'll go back and fetch it. 900 gold... I'll go fetch it. To have a pet do it for me in d3 was like a breath of fresh air. Like... oh man... I can focus on the thing I enjoy. Murdering demons. Not being the sorcerer version of oliver twist begging for scraps of gold.
Legendary Gems:
Now I know we kind of have something similar in D4... but ... not quite. Legendary gems had their owne legendary aspects. Extra abilities they could enable. I really liked the one that turned you into a conduit. D4... sure we have glyphs .. but they are just stat modifiers. That's it.
No chest filter:
D3... there was a search bar to search for equipment. D4... no search bar... why not include it out thr box????
I can use abilities in town:
No not because I want to lay down a world of hurt on the npc's in town.. but to just teleport a small distance to make my life a bit easier would be nice. "Use your horse" it's barely faster in town and you can't even gallop in town so... my point stand.
End Game Town Layout:
Playing D3 it was like I was on holiday to portal back into town and everything I needed was mere steps away. The merchants were nearby (all of them), the blacksmith near by. The chest close by... it had a "market" feel.
Like many others - I absolutely abhor the S1 patch. S1 just isnt fun.
I summarised it the other day. Its killing a bunch of moldy people in a cave, killing them again, and then getting a moldy heart as a reward.
Its not fun. Re-discovering waypoints... is not fun. Redoing renown.... is not fun....
Another reddit post summarised the artificial methods that Blizzard uses to jsut draw the game out - and you feel it every minute you plate the game:
- Having a mount cooldown.
- Barricades making you have to dismount when running around the open world.
- Making us mark 99.9% of items as junk instead of just marking what we want to keep. Maybe doesn't waste your time, but really makes you feel the weight of how much of what drops is junk every time you hit the space bar.
- The number of on-death explosions making us wait to loot items.
- Personally, not having an overlay makes me miss stuff and have to backtrack so much in dungeons that just ends up being boring running back and forth time. I just want to chill and vibe and not have to constantly bring up my map.
- Not being able to directly teleport to party members and needing to go to town first.
- Having super vague and generic item names when they are on the floor, so you have to pick EVERYTHING up to see if it is useful. I’ll include no loot filter in this one.
- Waypoints not being saved each season.
- Having to do all the dungeons again for aspects and renown is already exhausting.
- Not being able to use abilities like sorc’s teleport in town. I know it’s been like that since d2, but why?
- Increasing leave dungeon cast time.
- Nerfing cdr
- Nerfing xp gains
Now I know D4 is meant to be a more true successor to D2 than D3 ever was.... but honestly.... D3 having deviated from D2 was just a better game through and through. D3 should have been the new and improved recipe.... D4 missess all of the stuff that made D2 good, all of the stuff that made D3 good - and is masked behind pleasing graphics.
I am sorely disappoited in D4. I want it to improve - I do.... but I dont see it happening for a while.